By Danielle Kam

Breakups feel like vegetables taste: bad. And, in my opinion, the worst part about a breakup isn’t ending things itself, it’s the aftermath: overthinking, crying, bargaining, wondering. It leads you to a dark place. What could I have done differently? Why did it work out this way? And a lot of times, you won’t get the answer to any of those questions. Unless you’re me.

“I cannot express enough how important clarity is for closure and to create the most positive narrative,” says Susan Winter, relationship expert and author of “Breakup Triage: The Cure for Heartache.” “When you don’t have a conversation post-breakup, there is always confusion. There are assumptions and, more times than not, there are wounds that never needed to

[exist].”

We create these wounds in the process of making up a false story about what led to the demise of a relationship. But those negative, swirling, and black-hole type thoughts are completely natural. When he said this, was he warning me this wasn’t going to work? Did she lie when she said she saw this going somewhere? They’re never-ending. So, when it was time for my next relationship to end and in an attempt to sidestep that mental spiral, I put what I have now deemed “the two-part breakup” into use again. We took time apart and then came back together to talk things out. It was sad and difficult, but we were able to have an open and honest dialogue. We spoke about how it was clear that neither of us were ready for the next step in our relationship and agreed that we’d rather exit on a high note and miss each other than drag it out and leave hating each other. We walked away from the conversation and relationship with love.

“You can’t close the wound until it’s got [a] narrative,” Winter says. “You have to put a cap on it, and that’s what closure is. In order to walk away from something, in order to have an ending so you can have a new beginning, you have got to have a framework for what happened and what occurred.”

Continue reading: https://swipelife.tinder.com/post/closure-relationship/

Do you need advice about your post-breakup? Book a consultation with Susan today!